DECATUR – Father Flanagan’s Boys Town, made famous by the 1938 Oscar-winning film starring Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy, is coming to DeKalb County.

Father Val J. Peter, Boys Town’s national director, announced at a press conference Oct. 21 that the non-profit, non-sectarian organization which currently cares for troubled children in 15 major metropolitan areas will now add Atlanta to the list.

“We have through research discovered remarkable ways to change the behavior of troubled children. We want to share this across the country,” Father Peter said. “Atlanta is a crossroads, a leader in the South.”

DeKalb County is to be the site of a Boys Town Treatment Foster Family Services program in early 1995. The program will train heads of foster households to provide more than a loving, caring home environment. They will be taught treatment techniques to use in their child care by Boys Town personnel.

“We will train the heads of (foster) households to help kids who want to change, learn how to change,” said Father Peter, a priest of the Archdiocese of Omaha and national director of Boys Town for 10 years. The Nebraska-based organization will bring in trained, supervisory staff in “our special child care techniques.”

The Treatment Foster Family Services program is just the first the organization would like to bring to the Atlanta metropolitan area, Father Peter said. Eventually Boys Town would like to offer its full range of services which can include long-term residential group homes for boys and girls, short term emergency youth shelters, family preservation services and a parent-training program.

Boys Town also operates a national hotline and a national resource training center.

Father Peter said in a phone interview that he received a warm welcome from Liane Levetan, chief executive officer of DeKalb County; Wayne Drummond, director of the DeKalb County Department of Family and Children’s Services and from Archbishop John F. Donoghue.

The veteran of 35 years in child care is trying to absorb the southern flavor of Georgia. He promised frequent visits to the DeKalb County program site.

“Boys Town is going to be a Georgia peach,” Father Peter said. “We will work like bulldogs.”

Boys Town currently has programs in cities including Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New Orleans, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Tallahassee and Orlando.